


Cracking

by rhye



Category: Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhye/pseuds/rhye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While others in the Order are facing the evil anonymous enemy in battle, Sirius faces people he knows. Does the Order question his loyalty now?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracking

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://hh-writersblock.livejournal.com/profile)[**hh_writersblock**](http://hh-writersblock.livejournal.com/) Prompt #32: The HP Prequel.  
> 

Sirius leaned close over the handlebars, adrenaline racing. He hadn't known their names, but he'd seen them, Death Eaters hardly older than himself and James.

"Trelane," James screamed into his ear, voice struggling to rise above the wind in the cool summer air. Flats of London blurred below.

"What?" Sirius yelled back over his shoulder. He thought he'd heard right, but that didn't stop the question from rising out of his mouth.

"The bloke you pulled in fifth," James yelled back.

"He's not. It wasn't."

"It was." James's voice was confident and Sirius didn't think James was wrong. In fact, thinking back-- yes, the tall one with the bit of fuzz on is chin. Sirius was at once proud and ashamed at having not recognizing him. Neither of them had the energy to continue a conversation against the will of the wind until their returned to Order Headquarters.

Sirius landed as quietly as he could in the back alley of the sleepy muggle street of Farmwillow Way. He wheeled the Triumph into the shed out back and glamoured it to look like some other motorbike-- _any_ other motorbike, really, so long as it could not be recognized if seen. He didn't need Moody telling him for the hundredth time that Sirius' motorbike was the number one security risk to the Order. James always calmed Sirius down by reminding Sirius that everyone and everything took their turn at being the number one security risk to the Order, in Moody's eyes, and as long as Moody let Sirius keep the Triumph, he must not really mean it.

"Ulysses?" James asked, and Sirius jumped, not previously aware that James had followed him into the shed. His eyes focused on the face of his best friend.

"Yeah," Sirius answered sharply. "Besides, I broke up with him." There was a distinctly defensive tone to Sirius's voice.

"Hey, I know!" James backed away raising his hands. "No one was accusing you of anything, Padfoot, Merlin. You're so touchy these days."

"You'd be touchy if every battle you were in was against your cousin or your brother. Your ex. Why can't I just fight strangers like you all?"

James frowned.

"Besides, do you see how they look at me? Moody. _Remus_? Even Peter. Like they expect at any moment I'll crack and switch sides. Do _you_ believe that, Prongs?"

"No, 'course not. They don't either."

"Emmaline Vance actually--" but Sirius closed his mouth and stormed out of the shed.

"What?" James followed back outside, pausing to lock the shed behind him. His voice now was barely a whisper, for they were not the only Order members spending more nights at Headquarters than at home.

Sirius shook his head and felt heavy tears forming there, an automatic response to the lump growing in his throat. "She's a bitch, that's all," Sirius mustered anger instead of tears-- anger, his specialty.

"She's one of the smartest witches I've ever met," James answered.

"So everyone says," Sirius shrugged. "She thinks she knows so much better than everyone."

"What did she say?" James urged.

"It's not important."

"It sounds important."

"Yeah, but if I go around badmouthing Order members I'll be just as bad as Emmaline says I am, so what the fuck can I do, James? Tell me what the fuck I can do."

James took a step backwards, shocked by this sudden turn of emotions.

"Forget it," Sirius groaned. "Just forget I said a thing. I'll deal with it-- all of it-- on my own, because I know you have plenty to deal with also." Sirius shrugged and went into the house ever-so-silently by the backdoor. James had no alternative but to go inside as well, and once inside, enough people were sleeping on the odd couch or in ground floor bedrooms that more conversation was not possible.

But James did not forget it. Sirius disappeared to an upstairs bedroom, and James to the basement where he took a couch until tomorrow when he could return to Lily. Sirius, it was true, was facing more psychological warfare than any of them. When he faced the other side, they were not evil wizards, but family. Well, maybe both. Now there were rumours about him within the Order. No one could deny that. Not that his heart was in the wrong place, but that he was beginning to crack. James had told all the rumour-mongerers to bugger off.

But now, as he fell asleep in the cold basement and accompanied by the subtle snores of Fabian Prewitt, he wondered just how far Sirius could go before he did rightly crack.


End file.
